The human mind has a unique ability to filter and interpret what we hear. This is why our world will forever change once computers learn to listen and understand sound the way we do – or vastly better. Not Yet Heard is a research project that looks at different scenarios that may become reality in the near future.
We may chose to seek silence and cancel out certain sounds or chose to emphasize others to create an individual soundscape. Sneezing and couging may generate valuable data for public health officials, and as the privacy of sound dwindles, the act of masking one’s secret message with noise may become the equivalent of a whisper.

Commissioned by the EPSRC as part of the Impact! exhibition at the Royal College of Art 2010. 16 Research Fellows of the RCA Design Interactions department were paired with scientists to make projects that explore the implications of their research in society. Bernd Hopfengärtner and Gunnar Green worked with Prof Mark Plumbey (Queen Mary, University of London) who is researching on machine listening technology.

Commissioned by the EPSRC as part of the Impact! exhibition at the Royal College of Art 2010. 16 Research Fellows of the RCA Design Interactions department were paired with scientists to make projects that explore the implications of their research in society. Bernd Hopfengärtner and Gunnar Green worked with Prof Mark Plumbey (Queen Mary, University of London) who is researching on machine listening technology.